After my last week's entry on the coherence of the idea of property rights in ideas, Crosbie Fitch emailed a rejoinder, tracing the idea of the incoherence of property rights in ideas to difficulties of enforcement. I repost much of it (with permission) here, and my own assessment:

He writes:

The incoherence comes mainly from the notion that it is possible to have property rights in ideas even after you've conveyed them to people.

It is quite tenable to have property rights in ideas before you've
conveyed them to people, i.e. whilst they're still within your exclusive control, and you are able to exert exclusive control (retain all records, retain option to publish).

The poet arguably own their poem until:
a) they publish it
b) someone steals it
c) someone else independently recreates something indistinguishable

In each case the poet has lost exclusive control.

Copyright is simply a contract made on behalf of publishers to pretend
that the poet retains exclusive control even after they've patently lost it.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 3:20 PM | Comments from Readers, Liberty and IP

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